Bagels & Nothing Else

How did bagels happen?

Who bagled first?

How much for a baker’s dozen?

Let’s learn stuff together.

Birth of the Bagel

The bagel was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1929. Legend has it that a local baker was trying to find a way to give his customers less product for the same amount of money. His solution was simple: hit them over the head with a baseball bat and steal their wallets. After several complaints he tried a new approach: stealing the hole from the center of a lump of bread. From that day forward life for Jason Bagel was never the same.

Happenstance

Meanwhile, in a neighboring state across town, Jonathan Philadelphia was struggling with his own problem. “I was a cream cheese salesman,” he recalls, “but back in those days I had no way to serve it. I used to push my cream cheese cart around town and sell it for a nickel a smear. I’d just glop it into people’s hands and they’d have to lick it off. [And they would have to] lick quickly, because nothing draws hornets and fire ants like cream cheese.”

Lives were lost to the furious insects whose destructive lust could never be sated.

Oh, and some guy put cream cheese on a bagel most likely.

"Dad seems to be responding to the new medication"

Variety

Everyone knows about the poppy seed and sesame seed bagel, but there have been thousands of varieties tried through the years. The Gravel Bagel was deemed too chewy by most customers, and the Mud Bagel never quite caught on. The Horseshit Bagel sells well regionally, and the French people who live in France can't get enough of the Wine Bagel. Tres mucho guten!

Cocaine Bagels?

Yeah, but they lead to the hard stuff.

Were bagels to blame for the start of World War II?

No.

Beat Bagels

In the 1950’s bagels took off as the happening snack for the beat generation. “I let the road take me wherever it flows,” wrote Jack Kerouac, “as long as we stop off for whole-dough on the way.”

Legendary Spanish poet Alfredo Montenegro tossed off this ode to the holy bread:

“You bagel my insides good
Lox is the sweet
The sweet of the salty
Sweet days salty nights
Feed me bagel and taste my ramrod”

Bagels On The Moon?

Get out of my store.

The 70’s & 80’s

For a short time it was uncool for Americans to eat bagels or even to make love to them. This all changed in 1990 when President and shape-shifting lizard George Bush declared, “I have been known to enjoy a bagel or two in my day.” Suddenly bagel stores were overwhelmed with the request for more bagels, and non-bagel stores were bothered by a feverish public asking, “Where is your bagels at?” The answer to shopkeepers was obvious: start selling bagels you asshole.

They did. And please stop calling me names.

The Great American Bagel Chase

Cancelled on account of stupidity.

How Can I Get In On All This Bagel Action?

Not covered in this article.

Bagels In The Future

It was a wild ride while it lasted, but chances are that human beings will have fallen out of love with bagels by the late twenty-first century... their extinction will most likely be complete by the year 3000. After that people will eat food pills and vitamin pellets for their necessary sustenance. Also sex will take place under plexiglass. The bagel will exist only in hypothetical binary code, a stream of viral programming, represented by a series of ones and zeroes, with cinnamon raisin thrown in for good measure.